Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Review

Review of Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre

As of this writing, there are 696 customer comments and 0 answered questions for the Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre. I've read the customer comments, and then condensed the results into this review. I hope that this helps you when shopping for a gardening book.

Best Fea​tures

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Everything you need to know about farming

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Great for beginners

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Good price

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Can be bought on Kindle, paperback, audio CD, spiral-bound, or audio book

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Contains photographs, tables, diagrams, and illustrations

Item Specifics

The Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre is a guide on small-area farming, and will show you how to produce 85% of an average family's food on just a quarter of an acre. It also teaches you how to earn $10,000 annually while farming. For both experts and beginners this book will teach you everything you need to know about gardening. It teaches about buying seeds, starting seeds, establishing raised beds, soil fertility practices, composting, dealing with pests, dealing with diseases, crop rotation, farm planning, and many other gardening tips. This book also has other farming tips, such as raising backyard chickens and canning your food. There are many photographs, tables, diagrams, and illustrations in this book. This book is available on Kindle, on paperback, on an audio CD, as a spiral-bound, and as an audio book.

Great Price

The cost for this book is a good price. Many customers were pleased with the price, and were surprised that it was a high quality book even though the price was low. One customer explains about the price, "This book is a gardener's gem. I hesitated buying it only because of the low price! Don't judge a book by its cost. This lovely volume is worth a lot more. It is straight to the point in a pleasant, readable fashion."

Mixed Reviews on the Photographs

There were mixed customer reviews on the photographs. Some customers stated that this book had lots of helpful images, while others said that there were hardly any useful pictures. Some customers said that there were too many pictures of grass, rather than photos that demonstrated how to farm. Here is what one customer had to say, " Very good content with poor pictures, badly taken and with low quality. In a new edition I would suggest to change many pictures and add diagrams, sketches and drawings to be more clear in many explanations."

Clear Step by Step Directions

If you are wanting a book that lays the facts out and gives step by step directions, I think that you will appreciate Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre. A customer explains, "This is my new favorite book. Not only is it incredibly concise, clear, and informative, but it references other helpful books that the author used and drew information from. I went and picked up one of those books today, and THAT one is also great! The pictures and step-by-step instructions on many of the basic construction projects are amazingly useful. I also feel like, despite reading a million articles on composting, I never really "got" it until reading this book. The fact that Markham has laid it out so clearly in charts, so it becomes a matter of math and time, is so reassuring for the novice composter."

Great Book for Beginners

If you are new to farming, you may get a lot out of this book. A lot of customers commented how this book was perfect for beginners, as it went over everything that you need to know. Some customers questioned if this book was for experts, and thought that it was not too educational for those who have been farming for years. One customer explains, "This is a great book for beginners and has tons of super useful tips for how to use companion planting and raised beds and other techniques for getting maximum efficiency out of a small plot of land. This is a great resource for anyone who wants to get into growing their own food and learning to be self sufficient."

Be Aware That This Book Contains Images on Killing Chickens

If you want to learn how to raise and kill chickens for food, you will learn a lot from this book. However, customers who simply wanted a book on gardening didn't like that this book contained images on how to kill chickens and make your own plucking machine. They thought this information should be saved for another book, so that they didn't have to look at it each time they looked through the book. One customer explains, "The killing of chickens and the plucking machine should have been saved for a different book--I can't even look at the pictures in that section."

Good Information for Being Self Sufficient

If you are wanting to be self sufficient, I recommend reading this book. Here is what a customer who read this book had to share, "I am not a farmer or a gardner. But I am curious as to how much land it would take someone to survive on. Of course that depends on a great number of parameters. But this book is a great start. The author comes up with the size of ground needed and the yields for various crops. The one area that looks the toughest is grains. It is also where we get most of our calories. I suspect we will all need more than 1/4 acre. But this is a great book on self sufficiency and food storage. I can remember my mother canning food for the winter. I never knew what the techniques were. Now I do. Thanks for a great book."

Contains General Information

Although this book is great for beginners, a lot of customers realized that some of the information found in this book could also be easily found on the internet. None of the information is new, and there is nothing too unique about this book. Here is what one customer thought: "90% of the content of the book is standard articles easily available in any gardening book, magazine, website, or a dozen other places on how to create compost, how to plant, how to harvest, etc... nothing at all that is unique or special to an intensive garden."

No Hidden Agenda

Some books give information but the author also wants to sell you a product. This books is pure in it's form without any hidden agendas. A customer had this to share, "I have always wanted to build a small-scale raised bed garden in the area next to my house to grow a lot of my own vegetables. There is a wealth of knowledge available on the web, but a lot of it is fragmented or only posted in order to sell some product."

Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Conclusion

The Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre is basically a guide for how to go about small scale farming. The author has no hidden agenda to try to sell you a product other than the book itself. This is a detailed "How To" book on many aspects of farming. Be aware that there is a section on killing chickens along with photos. This is a great book for beginners. It sells for a low price for what you get. There were some mixed reviews on the photographs. But other than that, the majority of comments were very positive for Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre.

Common Questions

Here are some top questions that I found for people considering buying Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre.

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Who is the author of this book? The author of this book is Brett L. Markham. He is an engineer, third-generation farmer, and polymath. Using the methods he explained in his book, he runs a profitable, Certiﬁed Naturally Grown mini farm on less than half an acre. Brett works full time as an engineer for a broadband ISP, and also runs his farm. He lives in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. To find out more about Brett and his farm, visit his website by clicking here.

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Has the author written any other books? Yes, Brett L. Markham has written several other books. In 2006, he wrote Mini Farming for Self Sufficiency. In 2010 he wrote Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre, which is the book I've reviewed today. Next he wrote Mini Farming to Vegetable Gardening, which he wrote in 2012. In 2012 he also wrote Maximizing Your Mini Farm, as well as Mini Farming Guide to Fermenting. In 2013, Brett wrote Mini Farm Guide to Composting, and in 2014 he wrote the Food Dehydrating Bible. He also wrote in 2014 the Mini Farming Handbook, and Modern Caveman.

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I am one of our content writers for Everything Backyard. I am a mother and business owner of Big Horn Mountain Alpacas in Wyoming. I love farm life, cutting my own firewood in the mountains, and participating in local trail run races.

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I am the managing editor here at Everything Backyard. I love all things design, including interior and landscape design. In my spare time, you can find me sitting outside reading a good book or working on my own DIY projects.

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